So, your company is recruiting - again! Sounds like fun! Actually, recruiting, interviewing and hiring can be some of the most draining, time-consuming activities undertaken by Human Resource professionals. But, it can also be one of the more rewarding experiences they encounter. Locating and securing talent is always a rewarding experience, if we know how to do it right.
While some large corporations have tried and tested methods of recruitment and selection, other corporations are still exploring this arena, and attempting to standardize their recruitment process. Why does so much hype go into recruiting new employees? Why can’t we just try a different method every time, depending on the time frame and our whim? Isn’t it boring to standardize things? Where is the innovation? Very simply put, a company’s recruitment process is the first thing these potential employees see from the company, and a lot of their judgment about the company, and their decision on whether to join it or not, is based on this initial contact with the company. Isn’t this enough reason to put in a bit of extra effort that will definitely go a long way in setting your corporate image?
One thing most HR professionals tend to overlook is that the average job seeker these days is much more informed, prepared, and picky than the case, say, 5 years back. This is due to the increasing sense of competition in the market that leaves these job hunters with the feeling that they need to do everything possible to stand out from their peers. While this is an advantage, since it gives the employer the chance to select the best, it also gives him more work. With job seekers that are well informed and highly prepared, an HR professional needs to be at least twice as prepared as he would have been in the past.
When we talk about preparation for interviewing and selecting, this preparation encompasses a number of elements in addition to the actual content of the interview. An obvious starting point for the preparation process would be the actual vacancy at hand - the job description and qualifications. Candidates’ awareness today leads them to asking questions about career development paths and training opportunities in the interview, so make sure you know these things in advance. Nothing leaves a more negative impression on a prospective candidate than an HR professional not having ready answers to something that is more or less taken for granted.
Now you have all the job specifics at hand, move on to the recruitment process itself. Determine where you will announce the vacancy - online recruitment site, recruitment agency, newspaper, etc. The possibilities are countless, and it all depends on the candidate profile you have, and the number of applicants you want. Once this is out of the way, a timeframe for the application/screening/interviewing phase should be set. This is especially useful because it will keep you on your toes - you won’t be tempted to keep on interviewing for as long as there are candidates applying. It will also make it easier to decide when you will be done with each stage, and when you will be able to inform the candidates of their status in the process.
The next step is one of the most tedious in the recruitment process - screening the resumes to decide who will be called in for an interview. How can you do that? Is it fair to pass judgment on a person by the way a piece of paper looks? Yes! By all means. The candidate is well aware that this piece of paper is his “passport” to the interview; it will allow him entrance into the world of opportunity or he will be turned away at the gate.
How good the resume looks (and reads) can very well be the indication you need of the caliber of the candidate at hand. Of course, you will need to do a lot of reading between the lines to verify authenticity, but that comes a little step later. At first glance- in almost 10 seconds (according to statistics)- a trained HR professional can decide whether a candidate should go into the “no way” pile, the “maybe” pile, or the “definitely yes” pile.
And don’t take the easy way out and out everyone in the “maybe” pile! But this is only a preliminary decision, and the maybe pile needs to be sifted through once more- spending a bit more time on the resumes to decide if they can now go into the yes or no piles. At the end of this stage you should have no maybe pile. Always keep in mind that you are only deciding whether this person is worth an interview, and consequently the job- you’re not deciding whether you’re going to hire him yet. If you keep this in mind, it shouldn’t take you long to go through them.
Now, before you go on to set the duration of the interview, you need to decide what areas you will cover in the interview. Is this a preliminary interview? Is it the only interview? Are you interviewing alone, or with someone from the department announcing the vacancy? Answers to all these questions will help put you in the right direction as to the content and angle of the interview.
Once this is determined, you can now go on to analyzing every resume and highlighting areas you will want to probe further. Don’t forget to also pinpoint other areas you want to question. But how do you make sure that your evaluation is valid, and your comments fair? Take notes as you go along- don’t rely on your memory, no matter how good you know it is.
Take notes of everything-the candidate’s appearance, body language, facial expressions, answers-everything. It is usually doubly helpful if you have a scoring sheet that includes all the items that concern you, and a rating scale that you can just fill as you go along. Along with your comments, and the resume, you should feel comfortable evaluating the candidate on a fair basis.
Done? Now you can decide how you want to handle the interview- are you going to conduct it in a friendly laid back manner, or are you going to stress your candidate? How you handle a candidate in an interview should not be determined according to what your mood is like on the day. Rather, it should be directly related to the kind of work the person will be doing, and the industry you are a part of.
If the person is entering the dotcom world, for instance, or will be handling sales, a lot of stress is involved in his day to day work, so a few stress questions are in order, and how the candidate handles them will be a good indicator of how he will handle similar situations once on the job. Regardless of how good or bad the interview goes, be sure to give your candidate the chance to ask as many questions as they would like, and do your own homework in trying to anticipate what information they will be seeking.
Again-don’t forget that they are also making a decision here. And, this is a golden opportunity for you to continue your evaluation of the candidate, based on the type of questions they ask- are they shallow- merely asked for the sake of asking, or do they reflect a deeper, analytical character you’d like on your team. And don’t forget to take a few minutes right after the interview to put your last impressions of the person down while everything is still fresh in your mind. At this stage, some HR professionals feel a photo is helpfull, since it can help you remember the candidate more fully when it’s time to make your selection.
As you go through the interviews, you will come across some candidates that are a definite no, from question 1. So what do you do? Question them for 5 minutes and then let them go because they are not worth wasting time on? How do you think that would make them feel? How would it affect their performance in subsequent interviews with other companies, or their self worth? Negatively, I am sure. A good HR professional would usually stick it through the minimum time possible for a “normal” interview- usually not less than 15 minutes, and try to be as neutral as possible in his reactions.
It might be the person’s first interview ever. Sometimes judgment passed in haste can prove wrong if you just give the person the chance. And of course, the opposite is just as likely to happen- someone who does splendidly in the first 10 minutes can really turn the tables against him in the remainder of the interview, so don’t slack off just because you think you already like this person and they are a definite pick. Very few candidates will be a “definite pick” from the first ten minutes, so if you find you have too many of those, maybe your methods of measurement are too easy going!
Congratulations! You’ve made it through the most time consuming activity an HR professional has to go through. Now you need to move on to the most crucial part- making a decision and a commitment to one or more candidates. Although rather hefty, this part should be a “piece of cake” if you’ve gone through the other parts in an organized, comprehensive manner.
It is important at this stage to be as objective as possible, and to keep personal biases and subjective opinions out of the equation. Although most companies cite a three-month probation/trial period to be able to fully determine a candidate’s practical suitability for a job, this should not be taken into consideration when making your choices. When you decide to hire someone, think of him or her as being there for life!